Discuss factors within the family that heighten the risk of child maltreatment

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

Within the family, children whose characteristics make them more challenging to rear are more likely to become targets of abuse. These include premature or very sick babies and children who are temperamentally difficult, are inattentive and overactive, or have other developmental problems. Child factors, however, only slightly increase the risk of abuse. Whether such children are maltreated largely depends on parents’ characteristics.
Maltreating parents are less skillful than other parents in handling discipline confrontations. They also suffer from biased thinking about their child. For example, they often attribute their baby’s crying or their child’s misdeeds to a stubborn or bad disposition, evaluate transgressions as worse than they are, and feel powerless in parenting—perspectives that lead them to move quickly toward physical force.
Most parents have enough self-control not to respond with abuse to their child’s misbehavior or developmental problems. Other factors combine with these conditions to prompt an extreme response. Abusive parents react to stressful situations with high emotional arousal. And low income, low education (less than a high school diploma), unemployment, alcohol and drug use, marital conflict, overcrowded living conditions, frequent moves, and extreme household disorganization are common in abusive and neglectful homes. These conditions increase the chances that parents will be too overwhelmed to meet basic child-rearing responsibilities or will vent their frustrations by lashing out at their children.